While “wiretapping” is a heated topic in the United States, on the other side of the world the Chinese government “quietly” began a campaign of installing surveillance cameras in churches to spy on Christians. Recent reports say that the government will know exactly who is attending services and what is said from the pulpit. Ironically, […]
(I would like to express my special thanks to the American Bar Association and Carolina Academic Press for kindly providing me with a review copy of Mr. Gao’s memoir. This blog is the first part of my book review of “Unwavering Convictions: Gao Zhisheng’s Ten-Year Torture and Faith in China’s Future.”) Mr. Gao Zhisheng, the […]
Today is Chinese New Year, the Year of the Rooster, 2017. I left Beijing in January 2009; I have never returned to China since. “Stay away from Falun Gong and other … you know the consequences (jail)!” was the parting warning from a Communist Party secretary when I left the university I used to teach […]
My friend David loves to tell me how his family enjoys the Christmas season and how it is his wife’s most wonderful time of the year – their children come home and their house is filled with joyful laughter. David’s home represents how millions of ordinary American families celebrate and enjoy Christmas in the United […]
On a burning hot summer morning, in South-central China Hubei Province, approximately three hundred community schoolteachers (non-public schoolteachers) gathered in front of the City Government office building, sitting quietly and pleading with the government to fulfill a promise made decades ago. The government promised that each year, from 1996 to 1998, 500 community schoolteachers would […]
My mom is in the hospital. I called her last night, and she described the chaotic and miserable life faced by thousands of patients seeking treatment. “Patients have to wait for months in order to see a doctor for important examinations, such as CAT scans, or surgeries. You need to buy a ticket to see […]
Chinese mental hospitals have an euphemistic name: “Ankang”, which literally means “peace and health.” “Peace and Health” hospitals are psychiatric institutions, all of which are administered by China’s Ministry of Public Security, and rumor has it there are about 22 across the country (Lubman, 2016). Ankang hospitals are controlled by the police and used by […]
The Chinese government recently put out a video titled “If you wanted China to be changed like those (countries, such as Iraq, Syria, Ukraine, Libya and Turkey), please walk all over us.” After presenting images of war-torn countries, the video argues that “behind all these things, we can see the deep shadow of the star-spangled […]
Beijing. June 3, 1989. The night was hot, humid … and long; very long. As dusk reluctantly gave way to the darkness, the 109-acre Tiananmen Square looked like a gigantic, steaming cauldron; the heat trapped by the concrete slabs during the day, painstakingly evaporating into the evening’s somewhat cooler air. From the distance, scattered lampposts […]
April 14th, 2016 was an unusual day for a middle-aged Christian couple in Henan Province. The cacophonous sound of bulldozers became clearer and clearer to them, while they stood in front of their church. The pastor of the church, Jiangong and his wife Cuimei had refused to hand over their church grounds to a local […]